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The key to success with Dorper sheep is to start with the best sheep you can get, from a reputable breeder. Dorper breeder Tina Wilson of Sterling County, Texas, said a reputable breeder will not only furnish quality seed stock but is likely to want to help the beginning sheep raiser with advice and make sure they succeed in their new endeavor.
Tina and husband Larry run commercial cattle and fullblood Dorpers. Their Dorper sheep are sought after, so much that potential buyers are making offers on ewe lambs not yet weaned from their mothers. "I sell to people with fullblood flocks and to kids who are showing," Tina Wilson said.
Tina is a member of the American Dorper Sheep Breeders' Society and the Texas Hill Country Dorper Association. Those organizations are a good place to start researching reputable Dorper breeders for people wanting to start with raising the hardy hair sheep.
Wilson said a good reputable seed stock breeder will help newcomers get started and give them guidance on conformation and bloodlines in selecting stock.
"I tell them how I started. I built my herd from three sheep to 300 registered ewes," she said. "I knew when I got in it that I wanted to buy the best that my pocketbook would let me buy. And I did that."
For those who haven't been in it before, the sheep business is hard to learn, Wilson said. "Make sure you have somebody you can always go back to and ask questions."
Relatively new Dorper rancher Kurt Hanna of Iraan, Texas, said the main reason for the family's switch to Dorpers, at first, was the difficulty in scheduling shearers for their wool sheep.
"We were raising Rambouillets and we were kind of struggling at the time to find shearers," he said. "There were so many times we had rounded up and waited on shearers. At one point in particular we waited almost a month. We'd round up and feed them and wait and then turn them back out."
"I had heard about these hair sheep and how you didn't have to shear any more," Hanna said. "My buddy Warren Cude at Fort Stockton was raising Dorpers at the time."
Hanna bought four Dorpers at a...